The question of judicial compensation — not just how much, but the mechanism used to set the amount — has been a part of the American discourse on judicial independence since before the Revolution. In the Declaration of Independence, the colonists listed among their grievances that King George III had “made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.”
Since then, states have devised, revised, and rejected many different compensation schemes to strike the delicate balance of ensuring that judges receive fair compensation and maintain their independence from the other branches of government. Data collected by the National Center for State Courts revealed that while state legislatures maintain overall control over judicial salaries (with the notable exception of Arkansas), the mechanisms used to set those salaries vary widely.
Twenty-four states and the U.S. Virgin Islands rely on judicial compensation commissions, which are independent bodies that devise a salary schedule for judges and sometimes other court personnel. Very little has changed in the last six years in the states that use these commissions,1 except North Carolina, which abolished its State Judicial Council commission in 2022.2
There are four main types of compensation commissions in state courts:
The remaining 31 states and territories either do not have a commission (28) or their commissions do not cover judicial salaries (California, Idaho, and Alaska).
While legislatures and commissions set base salary amounts, several states also include provisions that provide for automatic cost-of-living adjustments. Maine’s legislature, for example, set a statutory amount for judicial salaries in fiscal year 1998-99 but also provided for automatic cost-of-living adjustments up to 3 percent per year based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI).7 However, because these automatic adjustments are set by statute, some legislatures have opted to repeal or suspend them, with mixed results. For example, Illinois’ Compensation Review Board was mandated by statute to compute the cost-of-living adjustments for judicial salaries and increase them accordingly. When the legislature attempted to suspend such cost-of-living increases, the act was held unconstitutional.8 In 2023, Texas also considered legislation that would tie judicial salaries to the CPI.9
While at the time of writing, no state statutorily ties state judicial salaries to those of federal judges, such efforts are not uncommon. From 2005 to 2007, Pennsylvania adopted a system where state judicial salaries were set as a percentage of federal judges’ salaries or tied to a cost-of-living increase based on the CPI (whichever was greater).10 That system lasted only two years before the references to federal judicial salaries were removed; the CPI language remained.11 Still, compensation commissions have tied state judicial salaries directly to those of federal judges in several states, notably Missouri12 and New York.13 However, in the case of New York, that direct tie lasted only from 2016 through 2019; the compensation commission recommended in 2020 against continuing to directly link state and federal judicial salaries due to concerns over the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.14 In March 2023, the New Mexico Legislature adopted SB 23, which would tie state judicial salaries to the salaries of federal magistrate judges serving in New Mexico. That bill was vetoed in April 2023.15 A similar plan that would directly tie state judicial salaries to that of federal judges was enacted in Kansas in 2023. Starting in 2025, a Kansas district court judge’s salary will be 75 percent of the annual salary of a U.S. district judge, while the state’s chief justice will have a salary equal to 125 percent.16
Several states provide judges with longevity increases, providing that a judge who serves for longer periods receives additional compensation. The result is that judges who are new to the bench can make substantially less than their counterparts. The most recent state to adopt such a practice was Texas, in 2019. Judges in that state receive 100 percent of their base salaries after four years of service and 120 percent after eight years.17 Similar programs exist in Connecticut and Nevada.18 Alabama repealed its “bench experience” system in 2004,19 but has since reinstituted it — first for circuit and district judges,20 and in 2021 for all judges.21
Local or other supplements
While relatively commonplace in earlier parts of American history, local supplements for judges in higher-level courts are less common today. Georgia maintains such a system, with total local supplementation capped at $50,000.22 Texas has a similar system whereby counties can supplement court of appeals salaries up to $9,000 and district court judges up to $18,000.23 Other states have eliminated or are phasing out such systems.24
States have devised, revised, and rejected many different compensation schemes to strike the delicate balance of ensuring that judges receive fair compensation and maintain their independence from the other branches of government.
Louisiana’s supplemental system is at the state rather than the county level.25 The Judges’ Supplemental Compensation Fund is funded by court fees,26 which are then disbursed monthly to judges throughout the state. Because the fund relied on court fees, judges in Louisiana faced pay cuts during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.27
This and additional information on commission language and how states set judicial salaries can be found at the National Center for State Courts’ Judicial Salary Tracker located at www.ncsc.org/salarytracker/special-reports/how-states-set-salaries/map. The Judicial Salary Tracker has been recently updated to include information showing 10-year trends in judicial salaries for each state as well as to provide additional comparison tools for appellate courts and general jurisdiction trial courts.
WILLIAM RAFTERY is senior knowledge and information services analyst with the National Center for State Courts in Williamsburg, Va., and the editor of Gavel to Gavel, a weekly review of legislation in all 50 states affecting the courts at www.ncsc.org/gaveltogavel.
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